


The Weight A Pinky Holds

by astrangetypeofchemistry



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Abandonment, Child Abandonment, Childhood Friends, Gen, Slight Spoilers from Despair Bear, are those appropriate tags to use?, it's them dealing with their mothers leaving, they help each other cope, this is about their friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-04 02:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12761016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangetypeofchemistry/pseuds/astrangetypeofchemistry
Summary: Happy birthday, Téa! I can't tell you how much you, and your writing have done for me in the past year. I planned on having this up at exactly midnight, but my Internet screwed me over last night and then I was busy.You are one of the greatest writers I know, and if it wasn't for you, I never would've listened to Dear Evan Hansen. Your writing is so great, and I am so happy I stumbled onto your fics when I did.Thank you, for being the best. I hear you're in the mood for Chlodrien friendship?





	The Weight A Pinky Holds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [demistories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/demistories/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Téa! I can't tell you how much you, and your writing have done for me in the past year. I planned on having this up at exactly midnight, but my Internet screwed me over last night and then I was busy.
> 
> You are one of the greatest writers I know, and if it wasn't for you, I never would've listened to Dear Evan Hansen. Your writing is so great, and I am so happy I stumbled onto your fics when I did. 
> 
> Thank you, for being the best. I hear you're in the mood for Chlodrien friendship?

****He’s there when the clouds are crying.

Chloe’s been cooped up in her room all day, Mr. Cuddly Bear held tight to her chest. The absence of her mother’s floral perfume permeating across the room gives her a headache as she rocks back and forth in her bed. She can hear some of the workers gossipping right outside her door about what had happened in the early morning hours.

Chloe wants to forget. She _needs_ to forget. She can’t live forever with the memory of her mother packing her bags, ignoring her own daughter’s hand tugging at her dress and asking her to stay. Even now, less than a day later, reliving the memory is choking her, as if her mother’s very disappearance from her life is a sea, and she never learned to swim.

Maybe the tears running down her cheeks will collect into an ocean instead.

Her father doesn’t check in on her. He’s been hiding in his office all day, busy with work. Maybe that’s what compelled her mother to leave: a bratty daughter who couldn’t give an inch of space, and a husband who worked himself to the bone and barely remembered that his family existed.

Because that’s all they have to offer, isn’t it? Her mother must’ve thought of Chloe as some snobby little girl who couldn’t handle the meaning of a simple “No.”

But she was just a little girl. She shouldn’t have to think about whether her mother likes the way she kicks her legs back and forth every time she sits down, or the way she refuses to leave Mr. Cuddly Bear in her bedroom, tugging the little stuffed animal out into the public eye as she followed in her mother’s shadow. Her mother should be there, _telling_ her what is and isn’t okay to do.

But she’s not. She’s gone, the way she’s maybe always wanted to be.

Chloe sits crying in her room as the sun rises higher in the sky, her door closed shut. No one dared to come in, knowing that they’d be faced with a tantrum. Its astounding how, even after witnessing an event that would most definitely shape her entire character, all that the employees can do is groan and moan about the tantrum that is sure to come.

It was as if all of them lacked basic humanity. Chloe wouldn’t be surprised; her mother had hired most of them.

What kind of awful person abandoned their six-years-old child to such a lonely life?

Chloe cries herself to sleep in broad daylight, leaving dry tear tracks imbedded into her cheeks as her pillow soaks up her tears.

Adrien is there when she wakes up, his fingers playing with hers as he shoots her a soft smile. She tackles him into a hug, sobs pulled from her as she relives her morning again.

His hands are in her hair, bringing her comfort even in the midst of storm.

* * *

 

She’s there when the storms don’t pass.

His father is off somewhere, hysterically calling the authorities and trying to get a translator as fast as possible. And his mother…

Is gone.

They’d just been sightseeing in Tibet, enjoying his father’s very little downtime from work. She’d gone to the bathroom when they’d sat down to eat, wanting to wash her hands.

She never came back.

They wait for a week before they finally go back to Paris. He hates to think it, but Adrien wishes there had been something: a goodbye note, a ransom letter, _anything_. This weird disappearance has disrupted his routine in a way that leaves him gasping out breaths in the mornings, an ache that gets bigger and bigger as the weeks go by.

 _Oh,_ he finally realizes, dodging Chloe’s calls yet again. _This is the ache Chloe mentions_ . _This is the emptiness that doesn’t go away._

He hides out in his room for hours, days, weeks, months. It takes four months of him dodging her calls before Chloe barges into his room, glaring at him with a fierceness he hasn’t seen in years. It takes less than two seconds for him to crumble in her arms, all the things he doesn’t dare to his father bubbling out of him.

She comes over every day after that, tugging her homework and sneaking sweets from his favorite bakery. She counts glow in the dark stars she glues to his ceiling, texts him random sentences throughout her day, and tugs him along to spas and shopping trips.

He can tell she’s making every effort to make him busy, and his father must pick up on it too, because he assigns Adrien piano, fencing, modeling, Chinese. He wakes up when the sun rises, watching as light enters the world, brightens it, wakens people. It’s late at night when he finally gets to his bed, sleeping blissfully for a few hours every night before he’s up again.

Chloe’s always there, and there’s always a full schedule following him as he trudges through the days, a smile always crossing his face no matter the time or event. She compliments him, laughs with him. He finds himself chuckling alongside her while she snorts herself to death. She’s bright red and wheezing, her hand banging against his bed as laughter refuses to spill out.

Her hand holds his, steering him away from the people who ask about his mother; steering him away, farther and farther from the dark clouds that threaten to surround him.

He knows that most people depend on the sun for warmth. But for him, Chloe is more than enough.

* * *

 He’s there when fate is cruel, and her mother shows up on the talk shows she enjoys.

* * *

She’s there when the world rips apart and his mother goes to jail for terrorizing Paris.

* * *

  _So we’ll always be best friends forever, pinky swear?_

* * *

  _Pinky swear._

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can see more of my writing over at ["writing" blog](https://awrittentypeofchemistry.tumblr.com/), or just chat with me on my [main](https://astrangetypeofchemistry.tumblr.com/), and ML Sideblog.


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